So I am hugely behind on Things To Write About, in the blog. As a result,in getting it up-to-date I am going to stick to the 3 main things I want to tell you about. Namely (1) the Glasgow Women’s 10k race, (2) the Moonwalk and (3) running in general.
I’ll be doing a mid-year update to the 2012 goals, at the end of the month, so I’ll cover the other things in more detail then, but now let’s go back to May, where I last left off… I don’t have pictures, sorry, so this entry is a bit text-heavy.
It was 4 or 5 days after I got back from Italy, and time for the Glasgow Women’s 10km race that I’d been training for. Remember, I’d done a recce run 3 weeks before that I’d felt quite positive about, and I knew I could do better than 79 minutes, on the day. I’d been hoping to take a full 10 minutes off previous 10km PB (the only other 10km I’d ran) which was 82:23 in October 2011, and given the improvements I’d been making, it should just be down to pushing myself on the day.
The day, as it happened, was cold, wet and rather windy. I’d stayed overnight in Glasgow the night before, so I went for breakfast with friends first. I was nervous, because I felt I really had something to prove to myself, but I knew it would be a busy course, and bustling atmosphere, so I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. There were 10,000 runners, and once we got started (about 17 minutes after the front runners had gone out) I quickly fell into a routine of looking for gaps to dodge into.
I started the race shuffling along together in the crowds with my friend Ianthe, until about the 2km mark, when I let her run on without me so I could take a short walking break. The atmosphere was lovely, but the weather was abysmal… It didn’t make for a fantastic mood, when I was walking so early into the run, but I picked up the running pace when I got going again, and settled into my own run/walk race from there. I definitely walked more than I needed to, but I kept a brisk pace when I did, and forced myself to start running again as often as I became aware of what I was doing. I whispered to myself a little mantra - "confident, focused, relaxed" - often, trying to regulate my breathing, and I distracted myself by looking at the funny costumes some runners were wearing, or briefly listening into the conversation of chatting joggers. (How do people DO that? Run along at 7 minute km pace while holding a detailed conversation about what who said about what, etc etc...?!!)
The course is a relatively flat one for the most part, with hills appearing at about 6.5km and 7.5km… I ran up the first one, and walked up the second. It was pretty congested around here, but I kept my head down and sought out the gaps. The downhill started, and I ran strong for about 800m or so, before another walking break. The last 1.5km or so is the only part where I'm disappointed about my performance - I really ought to have pushed harder to the finish, but I ran/walked/ran/walked/ran, and was annoyed with myself for doing so.
Regardless, crossing the finish line with a time of 1:12:55 was a GREAT relief. My friends Tamara and Shauna were yelling and whooping me along the final straight, and afterwards I caught up with Claire and Dave. It was really great to be there with friends at the end this time – my last 10km race had ended as a bit of a damp squib with nobody to celebrate/commiserate with. Claire had been running too, though I’d not seen her, and we all moaned about the weather but congratulated each other on the run, which was really lovely. Ianthe finished soon after, and we headed for home.
Really, really pleased with my finish time, even though it was outside of the 10 minute improvement I’d been hoping for, but also, I came away with some valuable lessons. I can definitely do better - I need to train more in general, run further distances in training, and definitely - MOST DEFINITELY - incorporate hills into my training, But more than that, I need to focus more on silencing the wee voice inside that keeps telling me to walk. I walked less during this race than I expected to, but I still walked too much.
In general, though: wooooooo!!!
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